Animus, Animalia, Familae by Tzzzz [Reviews - 5]
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Category: General
Characters: Aiden Ford, Carson Beckett, Elizabeth Weir, Jennifer Keller, John Sheppard, Major Lorne, Rodney McKay, Ronon Dex, Teyla Emmagan
Rating: PG
Genres: Angst, AU - Alternate Universe, Episode Related, Friendship, Hurt Comfort, Pre-slash, Team
Warnings: None
Series: None

Word count: 11409; Completed: Yes

Summary: SGA/Golden Compass fusion. To touch another's daemon is to touch another's soul. It is the greatest act of intimacy in this life.


Story Notes:
If you haven't read His Dark Materials or seen the Golden Compass, then daemons are basically animal-formed representations of the soul. They change form until a child grows up, when they "settle" on one form that is somehow representative of their personality. It is taboo to touch someone else's daemon, seen as a very intimate act. The name for Rodney's daemon is blatantly stolen from Meerkat Manor, which I also do not own the rights to.

Spoilers: 38 Minutes, the Siege, Condemned, Hide and Seek, Trinity, The Lost Boys, The Tao of Rodney, Conversion, McKay and Mrs. Miller, Common Ground, Search and Rescue, vague season 5
There were a lot of rumors about John Sheppard. They started before Afghanistan, before flight school, even. They called him a sine. In Latin, without. Nesasine, killer, without a daemon, but what they really meant was without a soul. They changed their minds after the black mark. An nesasine wouldn't return for his fallen comrades. An true nesasine wouldn't care. A witch, then, he must be for all anyone saw of his daemon. At the SGC, there were whispers of other worlds, seen through the quantum mirror, where people's daemons lived within them. Perhaps John Sheppard was a refugee from among them.

If you asked him about it (if you were one of the few that dared) he would just pat a small lump tucked under his jacket, just above the heart. "She's nocturnal," he'd say, even if a starry sky belied the truth: she rarely came out, even under the cloak of darkness.

In the first days of the expedition, people guessed, of course. They couldn't help it. The small lump under John's shirt was a rat, a small poisonous lizard, a fairy even (for while it might be incredibly uncommon to have a mythological daemon, John Sheppard seemed like the rare soul that could carry the mantle of imagination). A shimmering iridescent beetle, perhaps, or a scorpion, a praying mantis, a mole. But they were all wrong, as they later found out. And when they did, they didn't talk about it.

***

Rodney first met John's daemon a few weeks into the expedition. He dozed in his new, nearly empty room, on his too-small Ancient mattress, Kinkajou curled snugly in the crook of his neck. Normally, she slept next to him, but apart, a sentinel more than a companion, but not tonight. The personal shield had been both a curse and a blessing, certainly answering all their suspicions about the Ancients. Their daemons were different. It was hard to believe they even had them. They couldn't have, if they'd create a shield that would protect the body but leave the daemon out in the cold. What truly terrified him is that he'd allowed it. He'd been so scared that he kept this green barrier between them, almost to their death.

"I'm sorry," he'd whispered a thousand times into Kinkajou's coarse fur, gripping her tightly. "I'm so sorry." And she forgave him. She was the only one who would ever forgive him all his faults.

But he was not surprised that she'd been on edge tonight. He would have been too, if not for the combined effects of his hypoglycemia and exhaustion. But when Kinkajou raised her head, standing on her hind paws in her typical Meerkat pose and snatching something dark from the air just above his head, Rodney took notice. More accurately, he rocked out of the bed, tripped over his still unpacked bag and landed hard on a decorative wall-piece in the corner. The air filled with a loud, high pitch screeching sound that put his very nerves on edge, as Kinkajou turned the intruder over to examine, stretching its leathery wings between her paws.

"Stop," a small, feminine voice commanded. She sounded like Rodney imagined Wilbur the pig's spider daemon, Charlotte, might have sounded. Rodney crept closer, to stare at the crushed snout and long ears of a palm-sized bat.

"What are you doing here?" Kinkajou demanded, gripping the wings tight in her paws. Kinkajou may have been on the warpath, but Rodney was running the possibilities through his mind. He'd left the window open to catch the sea breeze and the moonlight, and there were no other points of entry. And she was a female daemon, so she could not belong to a witch. That left only a handful of possibilities. Her human must be in one of the rooms on either side of his. Sergeant Miller on the left, whose daemon was a shaggy grey sheepdog, and Sheppard on his right, whose daemon was, up until now, a mystery.

"You're Major Sheppard's?"

Her obsidian black eyes sparkled in the moonlight as she nodded. "You may call me Amaria, Dr. McKay."

Rodney nodded. "Let her go, Kinkajou."

Kinkajou seemed reluctant, but she complied, slinking back to stand at attention in front of where Rodney had lowered himself back onto the bed. "You didn't answer my question," she persisted. "Of course, I don't blame you. You were rudely interrupted." She turned to fix Rodney with a quick glare.

"Forgive me," that honeysuckle voice rose as Amaria did, easily hovering high enough to meet Rodney's eyes, but well out of Kinkajou's grasp. "I'm very sorry to have intruded. We were worried about you, though I highly doubt John will say as much. What you did today was very brave." Her words were formal, like something from one of those period English novels that Rodney had only ever skimmed. Kinkajou refused to acknowledge them at all.

"Thank you," Rodney stuttered, knowing that below him, Kinkajou was rolling her eyes. "I-- That means a lot, coming from him -- you." In even the short time they'd known each other, Rodney had come to covet Sheppard's respect. Not because he needed the respect of the bases' military commander, but because Sheppard seemed like a good man. Rodney and Kink, were rude, often bossy, and rarely paused to classify their actions as either good or bad, but Sheppard knew good and if he saw it in them, well, at least it was a step in the right direction.

"He does not know I'm here," she replied. "Please, do not tell him that you have seen me." And with that, she fluttered out the open window and into the night.

"Well, that was strange," Rodney breathed, trying to imagine a daemon who slunk around after dark, keeping secrets from her human. "You better not pull that kind of thing on me."

But instead of the sarcastic 'wouldn't dream of it,' Rodney had been expecting, Kinkajou stayed silent.

"You don't sneak around when I'm asleep do you?" Rodney remembered the time in grad school when they'd fought and Kinkajou had gotten into his Twinkies stash and eaten them all.

He nudged her.

"Did you see them?" she asked, finally, still standing on her back legs, looking out at the sea.

"See what? What's wrong with you?"

"The scars." An image flashed in his mind's eye then, hazy through the deep soul connection between human and daemon. Those thin wings were tracked through with knots of white, the edges perforated with missing pieces. Even the crumpled nose had been bisected by a faded line of scar tissue.

So maybe Rodney could understand. When he'd first seen Amaria he thought that maybe Sheppard kept her hidden because such a pretty man would be ashamed to have a bat for a daemon, but now he thought he understood. If someone had done that to Kinkajou, he would have done whatever he could to protect her too.

"Who would do such a thing?" Kinkajou whispered into the darkness, pressing even closer to the staccato beat of Rodney heart.

"Hey, it could be worse," Rodney offered. "At least whoever it was didn't eat his sister's babies on a regular basis."

Usually, insulting her Meerkat heritage would have gotten a rise out of Rodney's daemon. But not tonight.

***

Teyla Emmagen did not have a daemon. When he'd first seen her, it had been all John could do not to recoil in horror. Sumner had walked out of the tent, plain and simple. Here, she wasn't a nesasine, however, despite her skills as a warrior. There were quite a few among the Athosians who kept their daemons on the inside.

When John asked about it, she'd simply stated, "It is a worthy trade-off, to not see my inner nature in exchange for being able to sense the Wraith."

The Wraith had no daemons either. It was only later that they learned the connection.

"It's okay," John said, patting her hand.

She startled, because he was the first Earth human to touch her.

"It's a gift," he whispered.

"Yes, it is."

"If I had a choice, I think I would be like you."

From that moment onwards, Teyla reserved a small space in her heart to mourn John Sheppard and whatever had kept him from appreciating his own gift, that he would prefer the loneliness to his one true heart's companion.

***

John's breaths were harsh and shallow and his face contorted in a pained wince, but that was not what broke Teyla's heart. A high pitched keening permeated the air. Teyla felt it as a pain in her very bones. Amaria screeched and flapped uselessly, rolling against John's chest, her feeble claws scratching ineffectually against the yellow underbelly of the insect. Teyla had not been surprised by the shape of John's daemon, when they'd found her, screeching on the forest floor next to him while he struggled with the insect. She was a creature of the air, as much as John. Aiden had gasped in shock however, and it had been Kinkajou who'd scooped her up in her front paws, while Aiden's black Labrador daemon hesitated. Perhaps, when all the commotion was done, assuming they all survived this, she would ask Aiden what had given him such pause. In Teyla's experience, a daemon was no more capable of being ugly than a sunset or a mountain lake, even if the leathery creature that belonged to John was not the charismatic animal one might expect.

While Rodney worked at the control panel, Kinkajou perched on his shoulder, watching John more than the exposed circuitry they were supposed to be concentrating on. Aiden's Sachi whined in counterpoint, nudging the distressed daemon with her nose. They were running out of time, and John was in so much pain.

"Move her," Aiden commanded, pulling out a set of paddles which Dr. Bekett has referred to as a portable defibrillator. "Teyla, cut open his shirt."

Sachi held the still struggling daemon delicately in her mouth, all traces of the previous reluctance gone, watching Aiden prep the paddles with worried brown eyes. Teyla herself was not prepared for the way John's body arched up off the floor, nor the way Amaria seemed to fade, the way a daemon did during feeding by the Wraith. She barely had time to react when Aiden removed the insect and filled it with bullet holes.

"I will take him," Teyla said. She did not want to spend one more moment with that creature, even if it was now dead. Aiden eyed Amaria, where she was still resting in his daemon's mouth. "Maybe we should do it."

"No," Teyla replied. "Release her to me."

Amaria fell limply into Teyla's palm, faded almost to nothing. Teyla felt a deep sadness spread through her heart, like ice encircling a lake at winter. But she pushed to feeling aside, gathering John in her arms and stepping through the waiting stargate.

The next thing Teyla remembered was Dr. Beckett's medical team swarming around her, removing John from her arms and pulling him down onto a gurney. But the image that stayed with her was the tingling warmth in her fingers, the soft feel of a delicate wing solidifying in her palm as Amaria took a gasping breath, looking up at Teyla with huge dark eyes that seemed to smile.

***

The world glittered with the bright sparkle of exhaustion, but Kinkajou blinked it away easily. They were long practiced at this, having perfected the art of one sleeping while the other stayed awake. They were geniuses after all.

Rodney was snoring lightly on the cot behind her, body finally giving in to a massive stimulate crash. Kinkajou, however, could not fall asleep, her little heart still hammering with the rush of it all, the tantilizing orange sheen of equation after equation. They had a ZPM. They had a way home.

With one last look to Rodney, Kinkajou hopped up onto his lab bench, easily operating the small electric elevator he'd installed to allow her easy access. The temptation of the laptop was near. She could work on the ZPM field regulation equations, but instead gave in to her animal insticts - to stand on her hind legs and keep watch. In the wild, a large female meerkat like herself would be queen of all she surveyed. Responsible, too, for the hard decisions of her clan. When they had been younger, Rodney had imagined something large and brave. She'd spent most of their childhood as a lioness, or a leopard, like the men of legend and action novels. Rodney had bragged endlessly about how fierce she'd be when she settled and she never had the heart to tell him that the large mythical forms felt alien to her, like a mirage. She'd never been a meerkat before she settled. They knew of them from trips to the zoo, but that was it.

Sometimes, she thought Rodney blamed her, for not settling as he wanted her too. He'd given in to hypochondria and self-derision, then, as though he'd already failed at life and disgusted at his true heart's nature. And then, she didn't dare mention how right this form felt, how even in their often-bitter anger, she always felt at home. She wondered if Sheppard felt the same, when he hid his daemon away. Perhaps that was the strange kinship she felt for him, and for Amaria - the familiar jolt of unease, inability to value one's own self.

Kinkajou marveled at her instincts once again, when she noticed a slight movement in the doorway, despite being lost in her musings. "Hello?" she called out, sensing that figure moving out of the shadows into the lab was not a threat.

"Teyla." The woman without a daemon. It must be so lonely, Kinkajou imagined. And yet, Teyla was one of the wisest, most caring people they knew. She must have a daemon, on the inside.

"Good evening, Kinkajou." Teyla was also one of the few that agreed to address Kinkajou directly, no matter what she advised their lab monkeys. If they worked as individuals, they could get twice as much done. That was the thing that took their brilliance to the next level - their ability come up with separate ideas. Not just about what should be done, but about what couldn't be.

"Is it evening?"

"I have just come in from watching the sun set."

Teyla looked tired. Even now, she was beautiful, as Rodney had long since noted. "Shouldn't you be sleeping? After connecting with the Wraith, you must need rest."

"I could say the same about you."

Kinkajou snorted. "We've been awake for longer. It's not bad if you take it in shifts."

"The battle is done, there is no need."

"And you? What is your need?" Kinkajou snapped. Just because she was fine, didn't mean she wasn't also cranky.

"I cannot sleep. I dreamed I looked in the mirror, and a Wraith stared back. It was not inaccurate."

Kinkajou sighed. Of course Rodney would sleep through all the tough conversations. "And yet, thanks to you, many Wraith are dead. And thanks to your gift, we're all still alive."

"I always thought that lacking a daemon was the sacrifice the Ancestors demanded to grant me the gift. But it was not the Ancestors who granted it, but the Wraith. And I am more similar to them than I ever knew. What is it your people say? Sergeant Bates was right when he accused me of it."

"Nessasine. And no, he wasn't right."

"All of you wear your souls in front of you. I look at you and I see Rodney's true nature. In a moment, I know more about him than he may ever tell me. That he is vulnerable, but proud. Smart. He's a leader. But when you look at me, they see a gaping wound. Some have become physically sick at my deformity. Perhaps the Sergeant was right not to trust."

"We trust you," Kinkajou replied. And it was the truth. They trusted Teyla with more than just their very important lives. They trusted her with their heart, and to see such a proud woman, suddenly so doubtful broke that heart.

She's not sure why she did it. She'd never done such a thing with anyone, not past lovers, not their sister, nobody, but she climbed forward to where Teyla stood and reached out a paw to brush against her hand, as though going to hold it as a human might.

Teyla gasped. The sensation was powerful, more powerful than anything Kinkajou had ever felt. She heard Rodney gasp, too, still sleeping peacefully. Pleasure mixed with a split-second feeling of wrongness and painful vulnerability. And then, Kinkajou was left to marvel. As much as Rodney had whined about not wanting the 2.5 kids and the wife and having to share Kinkajou with anyone, this had been what was missing. This was necessary.

She leaned forward, hoping to feel Teyla's smooth careful hands on her back, to be lifted up into trust and safety and the humming pleasure of connection that surrounded her. But Teyla left her hand where it was.

"Thank you," Teyla whispered. "Thank you for this. But should you not wait for him? For someone you truly love?"

"We love you," Kinkajou replied easily, but she understood, nonetheless. She must wait for Rodney.

Long after Teyla had gone, and Kinkajou was curled up at Rodney's side, floating in a haze of pleasure, her whole body singing from the connect, unable to move past the moment, Rodney stirred. "Good dream," he smiled, hugging her close.

After that, they slept in perfect peace.

***

Sheppard limped into the training room, though the man obviously tried to hide it. After seven years, Ronon had eyes for only weaknesses and strengths. It had taken several offhanded comments from McKay for him to even realize what most people first noticed about Sheppard: that he was an exceedingly attractive man.

"Tough fight?" Ronon asked. He had not been impressed by Sheppards's skills in close combat. On Sateda, the man most likely would have had to repeat basic training. But then again, Sheppard was a pilot, not infantry. And it hadn't been Sheppard's fighting skills that had impressed Ronon today. There was something familiar in the cool edge to his voice, the confidence with which he commanded, the intelligence behind his hazel eyes.

He reminded Ronon of Kell in a lot of ways. It made Ronon's bones ache to think about it. "You could say that. Jumper crash, too. I can't believe you're in here." He gestured to the bandaging around Ronon's leg where the arrow had pierced it.

"No big deal."

Sheppard snorted. "Sure. I'm just surprised Carson let you out."

"He didn't," Ixta had always been the more talkative of the two of them. He didn't know why she chose to talk now, however.

Sheppard nodded, but didn't move to order Ronon back. Ronon hadn't heard Sheppard give many orders, but today he learned that the orders Sheppard did give were ones that had better be followed.

"So, what kind of animal is she, again?" Sheppard indicated Ixta. Ronon wondered, not for the first time, if it were common among the Atlanteans to speak of daemons as if they weren't there. Perhaps it was just Sheppard. After all, he kept his own daemon hidden away as though she were herself invisible.

"A gualupiel."

"Looks like a kind of mix between an iguana and a llama to me." Sheppard eyed Ixta carefully. She stared back, her orange eyes unblinking. "On Earth, reptiles don't have fur like that."

Ronon nodded. Gualupiels were unique creatures in this galaxy as well: lizards large enough for hunting with a long line of knifelike spines and shaggy brown fur in between intricate twirls of smaller spikes. The fur let them live in environments most reptiles couldn't. The majority of the warriors on Sateda had large four-legged mammals, some birds. Nobody laughed at Ixta, but nobody understood either. Gualupiels were independent, aggressive, solitary. They were survivors and none of military psychologists had known what to make of that. Kell had, however. He'd taken Ronon in when many of the other taskmasters had feared him. Maybe Kell had known all along what would happen to him when Ronon discovered his betrayal.

"What about your daemon?" Sheppard showed him everything about this city except for that. Ronon had caught a glimpse of something circling in the air when he'd first captured Sheppard and Teyla, but it hadn't fallen to the ground upon stun, as most daemons did. He needed to know.

Sheppard shrugged. "What about her?"

Ronon gritted his teeth, not sure what game Sheppard was playing at. His nonchalance was nothing short of degrading.

"We want to see her," Ixta clarified, curling around Sheppard's feet, just short of touching.

"I'm sure you do."

But a small furry head peaking out the collar of Sheppard's jacket, despite his best efforts to keep it down. The eyes were black and bottomless, the face strange and flattened with a nose like the intricate carvings of the people of Craa. The daemon pulled herself up with thin claws, spreading leathery, almost transparent wings like nothing Ronon had ever seen. She hovered in front of him in the air. Ronon wanted to flinch under her gaze and the soft puffs of air that blew on his face with every beat of her wings.

"Amaria," Sheppard warned, gritting his teeth the way he had back on the prison planet.

She ignored him, fluttering down to land beside Ixta on the floor. "So you will stay here with us?" she asked. "You will pledge yourselves to fight by our side." She knew the words. Somehow, she knew what Ronon needed.

He wasn't sure about Sheppard. He wanted to believe that these people had the power to fight the Wraith, Sheppard especially. But it had been seven years since he'd known how to trust. Maybe he'd forgotten how.

But Ixta knew, Ancestors bless her. Of course she remembered. She rolled easily onto her back, exposing the vulnerable white scales of her neck and belly. "We pledge ourselves to you."

Amaria seemed to nod, her dark eyes shining when she took off for Sheppard's shoulder. "Touch your fingers to her neck," Ronon heard her whisper.

Sheppard hesitated as no Taskmaster ever had. But then, from what he'd come to know of the Atlantean military, it seemed reasonable that they would not participate in a similar ritual of initiation. They lacked the intimacy that Ronon had come to know among the Satedan forces.

"Ronon, I don't--" Sheppard began, but his daemon silenced him with a quick nip to the hollow of his neck, strong enough to draw blood. He didn't startle, just nodded, oblivious to the small trail of red now dripping onto his shirt collar. He crouched down, the way one approached a fallen predator, his eyes fixed on Ronon, movements slow and deliberate.

"You're sure he's not going to shoot me?" he joked.

Ronon flinched. He shook with the urge to protect his daemon. He'd protected them for so long and yet Ixta was on her back, jumping head first into the arms of a new Taskmaster. She was as still as the moment before dawn when all the world is quiet, hushed in natural supplication.

Ronon shook with anticipation, watching Sheppard's narrow fingers as they skimmed along the vulnerable surface of Ixta's neck, closing his eyes at the tingle of intimacy and fear that danced up his spine. Sheppard sucked in a harsh breath. Ixta's electroreceptors could taste the frantic beat of Sheppard's heart and Ronon could too, through the connection that sung through the air between them, eating up all the stillness of the room.

Objectively, Ronon knew that Sheppard's hands had laid on him for mere seconds, but it felt like an eternity, watching almost outside his body as once again, they promised their faith away.

"We pledge ourselves to lead you and protect you from harm," Amaria pronounced. On Sateda, that was not part of the ritual.

***

"Hey McKay," John whispered, trying to distract Rodney from his ever spiraling do-loop of panic and hyperventilation. "Didn't Ford's daemon used to be a Labrador?" Sachi was now a snarling jet black doberman pincher, staring down at Kinkajou where she stood in a mirror of Rodney's usual defiant arms-crossed pose. He couldn't help notice how far apart they were as well. Ford was at least a room away, more when he let Sachi accompany Rodney to the labs alone.

"This is your daemon. This is your daemon on drugs." John would have laughed if the situation had been even remotely funny.

"Shut up, Kinkajou. Can't you see we're busy freaking out over here?"

John did have to grin at Rodney's snarky relationship with his daemon.

"Oh my god. I'm drugged too! Before I know it you're going to turn into a wolverine or something."

Kinkajou rolled her eyes, turning her back to Sachi and climbing up Rodney's sleave to perch on his shoulder. "That'll be the day. And remember to breathe. We need oxygen, you know."

"Yeah, McKay, relax," John added. "What's a little alien speed between friends?"

Rodney rounded on him, his eyes wide and blue and terrified, the same way they'd been since they arrived here, "I can't do this, John. I was wrong: this is so much worse than that time I toked pot in college."

"Shh. Rodney, you can do this. It'll be okay," John whispered, running his hand down Rodney's forearm in a way he sure as hell hoped was comforting. "I promise."

"You can't promise that," Rodney snapped, pulling away. John spared a moment to wonder if that was the enzyme talking.

"Look, you have to trust--"

John was interrupted by a loud grunt as Ronon and Teyla came tumbling out of the training room.

"Hi guys," he started.

"Well, it's good to see Conon and Xena haven't been adversely effected," Rodney sarcastically grumbled, stirring his speedy vegetables listlessly.

Teyla grinned, waiting until Ronon's back was turned before jumping him. But he was quick, and Ixta sensed much more of a range of motion then people did, the way Amaria helped John sometimes, especially in dark places. Teyla only grinned wider when Ronon spun and dumped her unceremoniously onto the floor. She simply rolled to her feet, diving not for Ronon, but for his daemon.

Rodney spit out big spray of salad as Teyla's hands closed around Ixta's neck, leaving the large lizard thrashing and biting at her. This wasn't right. John reached forward to ply Teyla's hands away, but all he received for his efforts was an elbow to the jaw and the faint dance of stars in front of his vision.

When John's vision had cleared and he'd managed to push himself to his feet, Teyla had released Ixta, and she and Ronon were staring at him, repentant, but still grinning from their fight.

"That's enough!" John shouted. "This has gone too far."

"But it works, Sheppard. Ford is right. I'm stronger, faster--"

"More willing to go after someone's daemon in a fight?" Rodney blurted. He held Kinkajou close. "It's not natural."

"It's not right," John added. "And I'm ordering you not to do it again. When we get out of this, you'll regret it."

His jaw throbbed and he had to talk to Ford, lie a little more until the opportunity arose. John had no idea whether or not Teyla and Ronon were still grinning when he turned and walked away and if they were, he didn't want to know.

***

"Problem," Caoimhe had said, only to have Carson hush her. It was more than a problem, of course. Even with a bloodhound daemon to sniff out the Wraith DNA eating away at him from the inside out, there hadn't been enough time.

Amaria's wings sparkled, clear and iridescent now, transforming as slowly as he was. "Kill me," she whispered, fluttering around his head. "I don't want to be it. I can't be that. Not after what it did to us."

The Irratus bug. John fingered the rough patch of scales on his neck, already swelling blue and tender. If he hadn't been bitten, maybe there wouldn't have been any Irratus DNA in him for the retrovirus to activate. Maybe he'd be just fine. "If I kill you, I'll be killing us," John snapped, reaching up to try and snatch her out of where she fluttered spasmodically around the ceiling.

"Then kill us. John, we are a danger. Can't you feel it? The hunger."

"No!" John snapped, bounding up, surprised that he could scale the wall to grab her. Squeezing her tight hurt him, too, but this feeling of strength that coured through his veins made up for it.

"You feel the hunger. You've always felt it. That's why you choose this sick form of yours. An Irratus isn't a far step." He'd never complained about it before. He'd been ashamed, maybe, but never complained. Something about a vampire bat was honest. And not just that Rodney could compare him to Dracula. "You knew all along, that this is what you would eventually be."

"You're not thinking straight." She struggled ineffectually in his grasp, the glitter of her wings like a grotesque Tinkerbell, only it was the soft fur of her belly that she shed, not fairy dust. "You know why I settled like I did. I'm you as much as you deny it. And I only ever feed from you. This is different. We're good, John. We're right and we have to do the right thing. Kill us."

"John?" the voice startled them so much that John nearly dropped his daemon.

Amaria ceased her struggling. They were both drawn to the human down below. Her voice was so soft, concerned, vulnerable. "John are you okay?"

They could feel her pulse, beating strong and healthy. They could take it. They wanted it. He wanted it.

Elizabeth a part of John's mind supplied. Her familiar floral scene filling John's nostrils. Perfume he recognized. It made his stomach roll, to think that she'd spoil the scent of life with that cheap mask.

"Elizabeth," Amaria cried out. "You have to kill us!"

But it was too late. John had already slammed Elizabeth up against the wall, dislodging Bethan, her civet daemon, from his familiar perch across her shoulders. It was only Amaria's sharp nip to his wrist that stopped him from squeezing her windpipe closed.

"Jesus," he breathed, stumbling backwards as Elizabeth's body slumped. It was all a blur after that.

***

Rodney's Kinkajou glowed now, sometimes shifting from form to unfamiliar form so quickly that Teyla couldn't hope to keep track, though never on the large feline that had been Rod's daemon. He might do it, she realized suddenly. Rodney, of all people, might actually ascend, and he'd leave all the rest of them behind. She didn't know how to feel about that.

She'd meditated, and studied all her life for the chance to send her spirit up to the heavens with the Ancestors, even though it had been generations since an Athosian had done it. It would be arrogant to assume that she would suceed, and downright blind to think that she could simply overcome her lack of a daemon by wishing it to be so, but she'd dared hope, nonetheless. And that very pride was the biggest of her burdens.

"You healed Ronon's back," she stated, moving to light a few of her meditation candles. "You did not have to do that."

Rodney snapped his fingers and all the candles in the room suddenly came alight. "I wanted to. It's funny. I get so caught up in things. I get caught up in myself and I forget to do these little things. But it's not that I don't mean them. I always meant them, and if I could have taken away Ronon's scars a long time ago, I would have. I don't know if I would have thought to, but--"

"He is your friend."

"Exactly. And so are you. I wanted to do something for you." Wanted. They'd known each other for years now, and yet he couldn't think of anything.

"I have all I need, Rodney."

"But it could be better. Let me--" He reached forward, for her chest in the way a Wraith brings a hand down. She would have flinched at the gesture if this hadn't been Rodney and she didn't trust him with all her heart.

His hand seemed to disappear for a moment, reaching inside her chest with a subtle tingle and a rush of pleasure so fierce she gasped, clenching her eyes closed against the overwhelming intimacy of the gesture. The sensation dulled just a fraction, though she still felt bouyed up by a see of warmth and comfort. When she opened her eyes, Rodney was smiling, a beautiful snow-white bird craddled in his hands.

Teyla didn't need to ask who that was. The sight alone was familiar, something she'd been seeing out of the corner of her eye for her entire life, it seemed.

"Hello," the bird stood up regally, the elegant crown of blue and white feathers surrounding his head fluffing out easily. "I am Torrell. So nice to finally meet you."

Her hand shook as she extended it to him, but Torrell seemed unfazed. "How is this possible?"

"I have been with you all along. Rodney only revealed me."

"Thank you," Teyla whispered. "Thank you, thank you, thank you," she hugged Rodney to him, mumbling the words into the skin of his neck, feeling his hands come up awkwardly around her.

Later, she felt neither jealous nor surprised when the numbers announcing his proximity to ascension began to lower, nor when he elected to stay with them after all.

"I never doubted him," Torrell remarked, from where he perched at the bottom of her bed. She could barely sleep, not wanting to take her eyes off of him, but eventually she did, trusting that he would always be there.

***

The Restan just kept coming. The salt flats were scattered with blood-red robes and torchlight that danced in the reflections of the few feet of water that seemed to coast the ground as far as the horizon. Without the jutting formations of red rock rising from the water like pirate ships in the mist, they would have been detected in a minute.

Rodney's radio crackled with static, not that he could hear it over the harsh sounds of his own breathing. The pain in Rodney's side protested every wheezing breath. He barely kept in a whimper. He couldn't move like this. They were sitting ducks out here like this.

Rodney jumped with a pained gasp when a big hand pressed down, cold and clammy on the back of his neck. Ronon's eyes flashed threateningly at him. Rodney knew the look: stay down and shut up. Not his greatest strength.

"We need to get to the device," Kinkajou whispered in Rodney's ear.

"No shit." It was their only hope. Not even Ronon could take down an army of crazed wraith-worshippers out in the open like this. And who the hell knew what happened to Sheppard and Teyla?

"Don't think about it, Rodney," Kinkajou chided. "Focus."

Right. They'd need all of their combined brain power to deal with this. The device was maybe twenty feet away, a short platform just sitting out in the open. Too bad the goddamned Restan were armed with flamethrowers.

"I could go," Kinkjou whispered. "I have the gene as much as you." They'd just have to cross their fingers and hope that it wasn't one of those Ancient devices, like the puddlejumpers, that required both daemon and human to operate.

"Yeah, and you could also drown. Meerkats don't swim, so far as I know."

And neither did gualupiels, their fur making them far too heavy.

"I'll take her," Ronon said.

"You can't," Rodney protested, weakly. But they both knew it was their only shot. Activate the device and the stun field, take out the enemy and hope that Sheppard and Teyla were on their way with reinforcements.

Ronon just grinned at him, cheeky and disturbing, but right nonetheless. He didn't hesitate to scoop Kinkajou up in his hand, as smooth as drawing his weapon.

Rodney had never felt anything like it, except maybe in a dream, but the blissful haze of comfort and trust with Kinkjou tucked tight into Ronon's breast pocket was almost enough to overwhelm the pain and terror of the moment. Almost.

***

Rodney should have been used to being startled awake in the middle of the night by now. In between Sheppard's daemon fluttering in his window at odd hours to check on him and the rude interruption of disasters that only he can fix, Rodney was surprised to still be surprised when he opened his eyes to find two catlike yellow ones looking straight back.

The startled jump he executed pulled the stitches on his already-painful wound, but he still couldn't find it in him to give one of his usual sarcastic remarks. "Ronon," Kinkajou grumbles from her place by his side. "Is it really that urgent?"

"No." It's been six days since Restan, and Rodney hasn't seen Ronon since the mountain man had carried him out of the gate like some fainting heroine in a cheap romance.

"Then why are you waking up the terminally-shot-up man at three in the morning?"

Ronon just stares, but once their eyes adjust to the darkness, Rodney and Kinkajou can see the reason written plain across even Ronon's stoic features. The man may not have slept since their return.

"I touched your daemon without permission. I need to apologize."

"First of all, you don't have to apologize. I would have gotten around to giving my explicit permission eventually. There was no other way." That was one thing Rodney and Ronon could agree on - pratically speaking, unthinkable options often became thinkable under the right circumstances. He'd never seen Ronon beat himself up over one before.

"But it was a violation. I'm sorry."

Rodney pushed himself up, bracing his side and still lamenting the fact that Ronon had chosen now to deal with this. As far as Rodney was concerned, they should pretend the whole thing never happened. That kind of intimacy, after all, was between a man and a woman, and Ronon was right, in a way. He shouldn't have been the first to have it, let alone take it.

"Well, what's done is done. I have more important things to worry about."

Usually, a simple dismissal was enough for Ronon, but he persisted, stepping closer to sit on the side of Rodney's bed. Ixta wrapped her long reptilian body around Kinkajou, who seemed content to rest her head in the soft fur of the gualupiel's flank. It was strange, to hear a lizard purr.

"You're my brother, McKay. We're a team. And I know that your people do things different. But if you had been Satedan, you would have touched her long ago." Ronon nodded to the two daemons. "Go ahead."

Rodney wanted to say no. He'd never expected that kind of invitation, not sure he even deserved it. But there was something hypnotic in Ixta's gaze, and he'd always wondered if her fur would be soft or coarse like the scales on the rest of her.

Soft. It was soft, and perfect.

***

When they finally found Teyla, she was shaking and crying, already in the throws of labor. But that wasn't what worried John. Torrell stared blankly down at him from a perch high above their heads, his dark eyes blinking without emotion.

"What did they do to him?" Kinkajou whispered, from where she peaked out of the pocket of Rodney's tac vest.

"He touched him," Teyla gasped out. "Michael. He was fascinated. He wanted a daemon, too. Remember, you had to pretend you didn't have one as well."

John nodded, letting Ronon tend to Teyla while he studied the cage. Jesus. Even the Wraith didn't dare touch people's daemons. He wasn't even sure they could. "Hey, Torrell, buddy, Michael's gone. You can come down from there."

As strong as Teyla ever was, Torrell was as vulnerable. Maybe he wished he'd never been pulled out of whatever hypothetical existence Rodney had brought him from.

"Oh no," That was Rodney's voice-of-impending doom. Shit.

"I can always climb up there and force him down," Ronon offered.

"No, no, you Neanderthal. Not that. Michael. He's almost got the hyperdrive back online."

"Well shut it down," John ordered, looking nervously at Teyla. They needed to get out here. He'd seen this movie, with the pregnant woman and the labor and everything. Not to mention the way his wounded side was throbbing. They needed to get out of here. "Amaria can go talk him down."

He opened his vest for her and let Amaria take off without a word, to land up near Torrell.

"Well I can't just shut it down without a terminal!"

"I could shoot it."

"Yes, yes, you Ronon, it's bad, bad hyperdrive. Now, what we really need is-- Wait, that could work. It's just down the hall. Here, I've got the schematics," Rodney was already moving towards John, but John kept his back turned, not wanting Rodney to see the slowly spreading red stain he'd found after touching his side. His constant feeding of Amaria kept him constantly on the verge of anemia, on top of the blood loss. It had been a miracle Keller released him at all.

"Here, you should just set a few C4 charges and boom, no more hyperdrive."

"Good, McKay, let's go," Ronon interrupted, grabbing Rodney by the arm.

"Hey," John protested. He was fine. He could do it. He'd much rather blow something up that be left alone with the woman in labor.

"Amaria needs to stay with Torrell. And unless you have some skill you've kept from us, you need to stay with Amaria," Ronon argued, even though John could sense his eyes on the wound on his side.

John barely had time to protest before Ronon was yanking Rodney off down the corridor, leaving him alone with Teyla.

She still looked beautiful, even covered in sweat and gasping in pain. John smiled. "I'm happy we found you."

"And not a moment too soon," she whispered, reaching for his hand to ride out another contraction.

She had a tight grip, just enough to distract him from his aching side. "We'll get you out of here. Don't worry. Rodney and Ronon will be done soon, and then we can get you back to the jumper and out of here."

"I do not know if soon will be enough," she gritted out, punctuating the statement with a strangled grunt. "The baby is coming, John."

"Already?"

"My contractions started many hours ago. I was lucky to hide them from Michael. As focused as he was on Torrell."

"Speaking of which--"

"Bring him down, John." Her hand tightened in his. "I will have this baby on a Wraith ship, without a doctor, without the baby's father. But I will not do it without Torrell."

John nodded, not wanting to see the look of pain and anguish on her face ever again, if he could help it.

Climbing the squishy surface of the living wall of the ship was both painful and disgusting, but Torrell's perch was not high up, and Amaria was there to coach him to climb onto John's shoulder. He almost fell at the sensation of it. It was one thing to touch another's daemon in the privacy of your own bedroom, or even in some Satedan ceremony in the middle of the gym, but quite another when you were five feet off the ground and already injured.

John had no idea how he made it back down. He couldn't feel anything, not even the wound at his side, he was so overwhelmed by the sensation of Torrell perched on his shoulder, and Teyla's own exhaustion and pain flowing through him to John.

And then Teyla was screaming for him and he was shedding his jacket and holding it out to catch the most beautiful thing John had seen maybe in forever.

Torrell was still perched on John's shoulder when he handed Teyla the baby, and John could feel their joy like a heavy, tangible thing, a blanket that drapped around all of them, bringing a smile to John's face.

"He's perfect," Torrell finally said, flying over to land Teyla's arm as though he'd never been touched, or experimented on by Michael.

Just then, the ship shook, reminding them all that they were still onboard the enemy's flagship and in the middle of a war. The jolt of what must have been the hyperdrive exploding also served to remind John that he wasn't in the best shape himself. Still, looking down at Teyla's son, recieving the first tentative caress of his mother's daemon, John knew that everything would be all right.

***

Teyla and Kanaan politely declined the video recording system that Jennifer Keller offered them. They took the baby monitor, of course. Despite their initial pure intentions, Teyla soon realized that she could not, in fact, be in the same room as her child twenty-four hours a day, no matter how much she wanted to.

She might have bought into the strange Atlantean craze of videotaping the baby's ever waking moment to catch the first form of his daemon the moment she appeared, if it weren't for the fact that both she and Kanaan had been born without daemons. It seemed too much to hope for that there son should be graced with one. What if, in hours and hours of footage, a daemon never appeared?

It was Ronon who came running in, not saying a word, just dragging Teyla by the hand into the nursery where he and the rest of Teyla's team had been babysitting Torren (a mission that they still insisted required a minimum of two of them).

"Of course he's going to be brilliant," she heard Rodney say, using the childlike excited voice that she had grown used to from amazing discoveries in the lab, or a surplus of chocolate pudding. He continued to babble on, but Teyla wasn't listening, instead transfixed by where Kinkajou was down in the playpen, delicately licking the fur of another meercat, who looked up at her with wide innocent eyes and a playful grin, transforming at once into a graceful white bird to match Torrell.

Teyla held out her hand, shocked, awed, and truly amazed, petting the sleek perfect plumage of her son's daemon. It was not the tingling electric comfort that petting Kinkajou had been, nor the painful sympathy of holding Amaria while she thrashed helplessly in her hands, or even the lustful thrill of grabbing hold of Ixta back when the Enzyme ruled her blood. "I know you," she whispered, feeling nothing electric, just joy, plain and simple, like seeing Torrell for the first time had been. "My heart, I know you."

Later, she would think it a sign that she had not thought of Kanaan, away once again with their people on New Athos, contented to watch her child's daemon shift, from great bird to small mammal to furred lizard, and even a crumple-nosed bat in quick succession, while Torren looked on with bright, amused eyes.

***

Rodney had always been a little creeped-out by Mogaje. Intellectually, he understood that a primate daemon was a sign of great intelligence, and had almost been upset when Kinkajou had settled meerkat-formed. But Mogaje's piercing brown eyes and the independence his form afforded him never failed to surprise.

The fact that he was the cause for many of Jennifer's problems growing up didn't help either. Primate daemons were rare, and those with opposable thumbs even rarer. Meerkats were rare, too, a fact that Rondey and Kinkajou took great pride in. But they certainly weren't as valuable. From the moment Jennifer's daemon had settled, she'd recieved nonstoppe phonecalls and letters inviting her into accelerated medical programs, research studies, and even work in the military. Daemons could get hurt just like any part of the person, but it was too much of a violation for surgeons to operate on them. A daemon with close to human dexterity could perform those surgeries and save countless lives. If Jennifer had ever wanted to be something else, she was a good person first, and she couldn't ignore the call, not really.

Even if it stole away her childhood to lessons in both human and veterinary medicine, and doomed her to a life she never felt entirely comfortable in, Mongaje always insisted that he'd settled this way because they could do it. Because he'd heard the call long before.

Rodney didn't believe him. Of course, he shouldn't judge people based on their daemons. One animal could stand for so many different personality traits, and at least Mongaje meant that Jennifer was guranteed to be intelligent. He'd always doubted Katie's rabbit daemon, though, and that suposition had turned out to be spot on.

But, even as much as he loved Jennifer. As much as he wanted to marry her, when that stupid pigmy chimp had looked at him with those dark, darting eyes and reached for his hand, he couldn't do it. He just couldn't.

Now, when she glared at him, or practically ran out of the mess when he entered, Rodney couldn't blame her. He loved her, but just maybe not all of her.

***

It was like any other day in the gym. They two of them panted hard, different skills, but easily matched. One moment, they were sparring, the next they were one the ground, laughing. There was no reason for it, as far as Teyla could tell. There was joy in the air, perhaps. Nothing bad had happened for weeks, and yet neither she nor Ronon were bored. Teyla enjoyed the rare moment of peace, the alignment of stars, perhaps. The sun shone through the glass panels in the ceiling, creating a golden glow around them. Torren slept quietly in a baby hammock not far away, and they would soon meet John and Rodney for breakfast.

"You are glad you came here?" Teyla asked, noting how young Ronon's grin made him look.

"Yeah. You?"

"It has been difficult, but yes, of course." Some spark of spontaneity ignited with her, causing Teyla to reach out, pulling playfully on Ixta's tail, so different from when they'd been high on the enzyme and murderous.

If Ronon was shocked, he didn't let on, laughing more and holding out a hand for Torrell to perch on. "Today's a good day."

"Yes, it is."

***

Oh, god was John's first thought upon waking. His heart already pounded like a sledgehammer in his chest, the air choking him on his first breath. This prison was no different than any other prison on any other world - dirty, Mexican-jail-style walls, high barred windows, a stillness in the air, the bated breath between screams. Even the way it seemed to fade in and out of focus with each tortured breath stank of massive cliche.

They'd tied John's hands behind his back, but nothing could keep him tied down when Amaria was perched carefully on the window ledge, far above where anyone could hope to capture her. Not now, when even Kolya and his snarling wolf daemon hadn't been able to catch her until the Wraith had weakened them enough to bring her down, and even then she's struggled so fiercely in the wolf's steel-tough maw.

But there was no escaping this one. Despite the primitive nature of the rest of the planet, the gate had a shielding mechanism. Amaria had been able to catch the codes when Rodney took a look at their system, the benefits of pretending to not have a daemon. But they'd have to get to gate to use the codes, and even if John weren't tied up, he'd hardly be able to move. That last kick had broken something inside. He could feel it shifting with even the slightest movement. He couldn't survive the ten mile march that'd gotten them here in the first place.

But even if he could get away, the time he'd take to make it in his state wouldn't be time enough for Rodney. Their captors had the scientist strung up to some medieval-looking rack, rusted spikes and massive chains in all. The wounds they'd cut deep into his forearms bled sluggishly into murky containers, ready for some primitive experimentation on the blood of the Ancestors. The irony was choking, that they'd assumed Rodney's familiarity with the technology meant his gene was the one that flicked on all the lights in the dilapidated gate foyer, not John's. And no matter how much John screamed it at them, they refused to believe he was the more valuable one to bleed.

John closed his eyes, forcing his breath to slow. He couldn't look at Rodney slowly bleeding out any longer. This tightness in his chest was more than just the bruises and the broken ribs. He'd seen people die. He killed a lot of them. He'd seen torture, and experienced it. But he was not ready to see Rodney die like this. He never would be.

"Jesus, Rodney," he coughed, tasting the gunmetal hint of blood on his lips. "Not like this." Some heroic sacrifice for the good of the universe, the clean fire of a planetary-scale explosion, old in a hospital bed still complaining about morons and lemons, but not like this: tortured by an unknown enemy, out of nothing but ignorance. This was not how Rodney McKay was meant to go.

In the darkness John heard the familiar flutter of wings, felt to soft skin of Amaria's small nose press up against his cheek. "You shouldn't be down here. They'll catch you."

"I need to be down here." He didn't need her to say it. They were the same person. He already knew. "I love you, John."

"I love you too." The thought of her out there, all alone, choked him with a panic he hadn't felt since his first live-fire fight. But she was right - no other way.

Despite the crushing pain in his chest, he managed to roll over, propped up just enough to see the window and watch his daemon fly out of it.

At first, he felt only a tightening in his chest, like the beginnings of a heart attack, but soon the pain grew far worse - a pain of the soul that far surpassed even the massive pain of his body. It grew and grew. It didn't relent. No matter how much he screamed, he was being torn apart, ripped to shreds. He wanted to die. He wanted her to come back. He was proud that she pushed on. That she had the courage to do this to them. John didn't. He knew that from the way he screamed her name.

He knew, the second they were apart. His mind called out to her, and though she answered weakly, images of villages and fields flying by below her, it was fuzzy, diffused. He could hear her thoughts, the pain, the love, his own soul, the first thing he'd ever trusted. But she was gone from him now. Something unplaceable had been torn away. And he knew, deep down, that he'd never recover it.

He had no idea how long he lay there, suffering wave after wave of throbbing emptiness, the pain of the initial separation gone, along with the will to go on. Not like this, not without his daemon.

And then he felt something damp on his cheek. Tears? Except tears didn't come with this feeling of peace. Maybe he was dying. All of that screaming couldn't have been good for his broken ribs.

"John."

His eyes opened to baleful black eyes. Kinkajou licked his cheek once again, sending another wash of comfort and pleasure through him. Not enough to overwhelm the emptiness, but to manage it, and maybe something more.

"Rodney needs you."

"So do you," was all she said, draping herself over him like a blanket.

John closed his eye and fell asleep between one breath and the next.

***

Ronon hated waiting. The only thing he hated more was being left behind when the people he cared about were in danger. Today, he had both.

"Ronon, please. Wearing a hole in the floor won't solve anything," Woolsey argued, for what seemed like the hundredth time.

Ronon just growled back. One good thing about Woolsey: unlike Carter, he was easily intimidated.

"When Dr. Zelenka can disable that shield and we can send a MALP, you'll have a go. But right now, we need to strategize. Tell me again, the lay of the land before they sent you back."

"I know how it looked."

This time, Ronon let Ixta growl for him.

"Yes, well, sometimes it's good to talk things out, solidify a plan before--"

"I have a plan. Once the shield's down, I'll go through the gate, shoot the bad guys and get Sheppard and McKay back."

"Don't you think a higher level of detail--" Woolsey's armored reptile daemon spoke for him. They sounded exactly alike, not merely similar like most pairs. Ronon still couldn't believe that when they'd first met, Woolsey dared compare his "tortoise" to Ixta.

Ronon'd had about enough of the bureaucracy for the day. He wasn't waiting for any MALP. Luckily for Woolsey, the gate activated.

"Unscheduled offworld activation."

Ronon outran Woolsey easily, taking the stairs seven at a time. "Sheppard?"

Amelia didn't wait for Woolsey to catch up before she announced, "I don't think so. It's the gamma site. Standard operating procedure is to rendezvous with the crew of the Alpha site or input the quarantine codes from the lab at beta."

"There are no other teams out," Woolsey added. "Either the gamma site's been compromised, or it's them. Can you link into video surveillance?"

A second later, they saw an empty field. No Sheppard. Ronon felt the rage build steadily in his chest. Of course it wouldn't be that easy. He'd been stupid to get his hoes up.

"There's no one there," Woolsey pointed out.

"Then he's hiding."

"Where? We moved the gate to a space where you can see nearly to the horizon."

Ronon squinted at the image, his hunter's instincts noticing a flutter of movement on the ground near the DHD. "Cut the connection and dial back up." He ordered, without waiting for it.

"Ronon."

He really wished Teyla was out of the infirmary. She could explain.

"Dial it up, now!"

Woolsey frowned, but acquiesced with a tired nod.

Ronon didn't hesitate. The second the wormhole formed, he was running through. The gamma site was nothing more than a grassy plain. Supplies were either buried or hidden in a cave network several miles from the gate.

He surprised himself by not drawing his gun when something flew haphazardly almost straight at his stomach. He knew who it was. He'd known from the grainy image on the MALP.

Amaria flopped about weakly in his hands. In this moment, she could have been mistaken for any animal, wounded and inarticulate.

Ronon stoked a hand down a fragile wing, trying to offer what comfort he could. Would Sheppard be able to feel this a world away? Ronon had no idea, but he was quick to press his wrist against the soft leathery skin of her nose, offering her the strengthening power of his blood as he had often seen Sheppard do. She resisted at first, but finally dug in. It was unlike anything Ronon had ever experienced - more intimate than even holding Melina's Senali in his arms. This did not invalidate that intimacy, however. Ronon was grateful to every god he knew that he could do this for Sheppard, the man who never demanded anything for himself.

"Ronon, what is it?" Lorne asked, finally stepping out of the gate. "Oh my god." He turned to the side, throwing up when he saw Sheppard's daemon alone in Ronon's hands. "What did they do to him?"

"He did this to himself," Ronon replied. He'd heard of people who'd severed. In the greatest stories of Satedan myth there were warriors who could separate from their daemons, or lovers who had sent their daemons away with the one they loved so that they might bridge the distance between worlds. If ever there was a man of myth, it would be Sheppard. "Dial Atlantis."

After they returned and Amaria had drank her fill and Ronon had scared away the medic that tried to offer him a bandage for the bite wound, she gathered her strength to speak. "I have the code. We must hurry. They don't have much time left."

She spent the rescue in the breast pocket of Ronon's big coat, tucked easily against his chest the way she habitually stayed with Sheppard. When they found the prison cell, Ronon was the only one not surprised and embarrassed to find Kinkajou curled up on Sheppard's chest, sharing the shallow rhythm of his breathing. Amaria fluttered weakly out of Ronon's grasp, burying her tiny claws in his chest, while Sheppard gripped her weakly. "Thank you," he whispered. Ronon had no idea to whom.

***

Rodney woke to the familiar sounds of the infirmary and the not-yet familiar tingle of someone touching his daemon. He tried to sit up, but found his body weak and his arms thick with bandages.

Forcing in a few deep breaths he analyzed the situation. He felt warm, comforted, relieved. There was something different in this touch, subtle like the flavor of a fine wine. Ronon's touch had felt protective. This one felt fragile and tender, a soul-deep sweetness that he'd only ever imagined with a lover. Playful.

"Rodney," came Kinkajou's familiar whisper.

Swallowing down the scratchiness in his throat, Rodney managed to turn over to find her perched on Sheppard's shoulder, with her tiny head and paws laying across his neck. The man himself was pale, wincing even with the bags and lines of painkillers flowing into him.

"What are you doing over there?" Rodney demanded, not that having Sheppard touch her wasn't a good sensation. They saved each others lives enough times. Sheppard was the best friend Rodney had ever known. It made sense that it would feel right for Sheppard to touch Kinkajou, if it made sense for anyone.

"Do you know what he did for us?"

"No." The images that flooded his mind were enough though - Kinkajou watching with disbelief as Amaria flew out the window, squeezing through the bars of their cell and into Sheppard's to comfort him as he writhed in agony. Rodney wanted to scoop her up in his arms and hold her to his chest in sympathetic panic, but one look at her said that Kinkajou wasn't leaving her protective perch until John woke up, not even with Amaria laying exhausted across his chest.

Rodney groaned in protest, forcing himself up, despite the weakness in his body. His muscles felt like wet noodles, his whole body trembling. But after what Sheppard had done for him, it was a small price to hobble across the room to collapse against the side of Sheppard's bed.

Rodney reached out to stroke a hand down Kinkajou's back, but Sheppard picked that moment to moan and open his eyes, staring up at Rodney lazily.

"What happened?" he mumbled.

"You're suicidal streak extends to sending your daemon through the gate on her own, apparently."

"Not suicidal. The only way."

Rodney's knees were wobbling. And the isolation room they'd been put in had no chairs. Sheppard noticed, wincing as he scooted himself over to make more room. Luckily neither of them had the large daemons the recovery beds were meant to accommodate, leaving plenty of room.

"Yes, well, it's not exactly the first plan that would have come to mind," Rodney grouched when he really wanted to demand how Sheppard could have done such a thing. Commend him, maybe. "John," he whispered, reaching out to grab Kinkajou and move her so that she was at least touching both of them. "I can't believe you did that for me."

"All in a day's work," John mumbled, reaching up to give Kinkajou's head a small pat that sent a spike of electricity dancing up and down Rodney's spine. "You paid me back."

"Hardly the same," Rodney mumbled. "You severed yourself. Kinkajou just - she does what she does. I have no say in it."

John smiled tiredly, reaching out to grab Rodney's hand and bring it to rest on Amaria's small back. That they were touching each other's daemons, screamed something at the back of Rodney's mind. It was for the most intimate of bonds. Husband and wife, mother and child. He gasped, stoking his hand over leathery winds and wiry hair.

"John, this is-" Rodney had no idea why he was objecting when a part of him said this was right, the first right thing he'd ever done in a life of mistakes. "I'm not gay."

John snorted. "No, Rodney. You're family."

Rodney was about to ask what he meant by that when Jennifer walked in, carrying Mogaje in her arms. She dropped the chart she was carrying, startling them both and making them spring apart; except for Kinkajou, who nestled comfortably into the space between their bodies, her whiskers twitching against John's hands.

"It's not what you think," Rodney tried to explain. He wanted more than anything to wipe the look of betrayal off her face, but what could he say? He had loved Jennifer and she'd been an amazing girlfriend, but they'd never shared this thing he and Sheppard had. She'd never even been as close as Teyla and Ronon.

Jennifer took a deep gulping breath and bravely ignored him. "Well, Colonel, you've done quite a number on yourself this time. Mind letting go of Rodney's daemon so I can exhamine you without touching her?"

Sheppard nodded, though Rodney could feel his reluctance. Ignoring how gay it was, he squeezed Sheppard's hand. There wasn't much left after a man severed himself for you, after you'd held each other's daemons at the same time.

"You've got a nice collection of bruises, three broken ribs, a mild case of internal bleeding, which we managed to find and repair, and a low grade concussion. Combined with the shock of severance, it's a miracle you survived."

Sheppard took it all in stride, not even flinching when she ran her fingers beneath his gown and over his bandages. "I got lucky."

Jennifer snorted. "If you want to call it that. As for you, Rodney, the gashes in your arms were relatively shallow, but when we found you, you'd almost bled out. That kind of blood loss will make you weak for a good while. You'll both be my guests for at least the next week."

Sheppard groaned and Rodney fidgeted.

"And you won't be able to share a bed that whole time."

"We're not--" Rodney tried to protest once again. "If you put more chairs in here, I wouldn't have had to lie down!"

Jennifer didn't seem to be listening. "I'll send Ronon and Teyla in. They've been waiting on you two."

Ronon was already grinning when he bounded in, reaching out to ruffle Sheppard's hair and pat Rodney on the shoulder.

"Hey big guy," Sheppard murmured.

"John, Rodney, it is good to see you well," Teyla remarked. Her right arm was held in a sling, but otherwise she looked fine, her smile radiant. "We were worried about you."

Torrell hopped onto their bed, nuzzling both Kinajou and Amaria with his beak. Ixta was soon to join in, giving Kinkajou one of her strange and intimidating "love bites" as Rodney liked to call them.

Rodney wasn't exactly sure what made him do it, but reached out, rubbing the smooth feathers on the top of Torrell's head. Teyla giggled, reaching down scratch under Kinkajou's chin. Ronon, too, was quick to join in, giving Amaria a quick pat and running his fingers over Torrell's crown of feathers. After that, Rodney was lost in a blur of sensation - his team, his family, surrounded him.




The End